


No! Don't Do That! Why?

by snoells



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles
Genre: Despotic Arsenes, Dickson is a Dick, Fat Armus, NPCs - Freeform, Self-Insert, Xenoblade Chronicles Spoilers, Xenoblade X reference
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-06-09 08:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6899332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snoells/pseuds/snoells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I decided to try writing a Self Insert, minus the OC not looking anything like myself. This is more-or-less me experimenting to see if this idea will work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Xenoblade X References for the Win!

          A young woman woke up in a grassy field in the middle of nowhere. There were cliffs to both sides of her and grass scattering within the small gap. Near her, she could find black mechanical parts. Where was she?

          She looked at her fingers, they looked as they always did: pale skin with unpainted and poorly trimmed nails. She was still wearing jeans and the black furred jacket that she was all too accustomed to. Underneath the jacket, she could tell that she was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but she didn’t bother to tell what it looked like, probably like the single-colored shirts that she normally wore. She wore crimson glasses that surrounded her azure eyes. Her long silvery hair was tied back.

          She began to get up, when something heavy on her back pulled her down and fell on the ground.

          _Clank_

          She turned around to see that a strange sword had fallen on the ground. To her, it looked like a white version of Replica Monado V from Xenoblade Chronicles. Carefully, she walked up to inspect it. The blade was incredibly heavy, she struggled to lift it up.

          _‘How am I supposed to lift this beastly weapon?’_ She wondered.

          She didn’t notice a flaxen-haired boy walk up to her as she examined her sword.

          “Hello.” The boy greeted. The girl jumped around. Instinctively, she pointed the sword at the young man with surprisingly more strength than she was expecting.

          “Who are you?” She demanded.

          “Uh…” That was all the boy could think to say. His eyes were blue like the ocean, he was wearing a red jacket and shorts. “My name’s Shulk.”

          Shulk? The main character of Xenoblade Chronicles? This had to be a coincidence. The girl lowered her sword.

          “Nice to meet you.” The girl responded. “My name’s Mira.”

          “Nice to meet you, Mira.” Shulk greeted, offering his hand to shake. Mira put her sword on her back and took it.

          “Where are we?” Mira questioned.

          “Mechon wreckage.” Shulk answered easily. Mira blinked. Mechon? Once again, a name unique to Xenoblade Chronicles. A sinking feeling began to spark within Mira’s stomach, something wasn’t right. How did she get here?

          Shulk must’ve noticed her face pale.

          “Is something wrong?” He questioned. “Are you OK?”

          Mira nodded. She couldn’t ask questions since regardless of what the answer was, she’d sound crazy for even asking. She took a minute to contemplate the situation, she did her best to keep a neutral expression towards the situation.

          It didn’t take long for Shulk to notice her weapon.

          “What’s with your sword?” Shulk questioned. “Mind if I see it?”

          “Uh…” That was all Mira could think to say. If her sword was a Replica Monado, then would it really be wise to give it to Shulk, the Heir to the Monado? Against her better judgement, she handed the heavy sword over to Shulk, instantly feeling the weight off her back. How did it attach there anyway?

          “Wow.” Shulk breathed, examining the Replica Monado. “What’s it called?”

          It didn’t take long for Mira to think of an answer. “Yggralith.” She based it off of the Yggraliths from Xenoblade Chronicles X.

          “Yggralith?” Shulk repeated. “What exactly does ‘Yggralith’ mean?”

          “Based it off of a story I once read.” Mira lied. This was going to get out of hand quickly, wasn’t it? “The Yggralith in the story was said to have the power to destroy worlds.”

          “And you named your sword after it?” Shulk questioned, raising a brow. Mira shrugged, it wasn’t like this was the stupidest name she ever gave something, her avatar in Xenoblade X was a High Entia named ‘Telethia’; sadistic humor and all.

          “Yep.” Mira answered. “Trust me, I’ve come up with worse.”

          “OK, I’ll trust you on that.” Shulk said, he handed Yggralith back to Mira, she immediately regretted that choice of naming. “Where’d you get it?”

          It took a minute for Mira to come up with a convincing lie, unfortunately, taking a minute to come up with a lie typically means that you failed at the lie.

          “Well?” Shulk asked.

          “I honestly found it not too long ago.” Mira admitted. She examined the sword. “I don’t really know what’s with this sword, but it looks valuable.”

          “You should return it to the owner.” Shulk suggested. Mira shook her head.

          “No one would simply leave a sword like this in the middle of nowhere without proper reasoning.” Mira told him. “Besides, if someone says it belongs to them, I’ll give it back. Can’t be too hard to miss such a complex looking sword such as this one.”

          “How long have you had it?” Shulk inquired.

          “A few weeks.” Mira lied. Shulk seemed to buy it.

          “It’s hard to think that someone would just leave something like that and hope you’d pick it up.” Shulk said, mostly to himself. Mira made a face, luckily, Shulk missed it.

          “Why are you here?” Mira asked, changing the topic.

          “Oh, yeah.” Shulk said. “I was here to gather some Mechon parts.” Shulk said, he began searching through the rummage.

          “I guess I’ll get out of your way then.” Mira said, beginning to walk the other way from Shulk. She remembered the map through Colony 9, remembering when she tried to 100% the game, she was still working on that actually. She managed to complete thirty-seven sidequests in Colony 9 before the Mechon assault even began.

          It didn’t take long for an enemy to notice her. It was a Caterpile, Mira didn’t particularly care about the details, but she did remember the name. She grabbed onto ‘Yggralith’ and began to whack the beast. She wasn’t entirely sure how to activate it, but regardless, the enemy was taking serious damage from the heavy weight of the sword. The Caterpile tried to charge at Mira, she was surprised by how much the attack was telegraphed (it certainly didn’t seem that way when playing Xenoblade Chronicles), she easily jumped out of the way. The Caterpile charged past her, she gave it a quick stab to the back while it was looking away. The Caterpile growled and swiftly turned around while Mira was struggling to shove her heavy sword back to her. Her attack was faster than anticipated, the sword’s weight nearly caused her to fall over.

          The Caterpile took the opportunity to toss her onto the ground. Mira grunted. She began to get up. She was now bleeding and bruised. Struggling to get up, Mira prepared for the Caterpile’s next attack. It charged at her as she lunged her heavy sword over her body, doing a downwards strike on the creature, killing it. The creature’s carcass lay down on the ground.

          Mira groaned in pain, she leaned on her sword for support. She wouldn’t be able to take on another fight in this state, so she decided that it would be in her best interest to stick with Shulk for the time being.

          Ever so slowly, she managed to stagger herself towards the Homs in question.

          “Hey.” She breathed. Shulk snapped around and inhaled sharply before rushing over to her. It finally occurred to her, what color was Homs blood? She tried to recall a moment in the game where blood was shown. The first thing that came into mind was Fiora’s death, she realized with relief that since Fiora’s blood was red, it was normal for Homs to have red blood.

          “Are you OK?” Shulk demanded. “What happened?”

          “Oversized caterpillars.” Mira breathed. “How exactly did you manage to sneak past those on your way here?”

          “Um…well, I actually just ran.” Shulk admitted, scratching the back of his head. “I’m not really combat material.”

          “I doubt that’s true.” Mira argued. _‘Besides, you’ll be the one wielding the Monado soon.’_ “Could you help me get to Colony 9?”

          Mira was half-expecting Shulk to ask if she was OK, luckily, it seemed that Mira was correct about being within Xenoblade Chronicles.

          “Sure.” Shulk agreed. “You should get your wounds checked.”

          “Thank you for stating the obvious.” Mira said sarcastically. She allowed Shulk to lead the way. “You might not be able to run from enemies though.”

          “Oh right, you’re hurt.” Shulk realized. “Like I said, I’m not that good for combat, but I do have one healing art if that helps.”

          _‘Light Heal.’_ Mira realized.

          “I don’t see any issue with it.” She told him. Shulk nodded. He allowed ether to channel through his hands as he lightly placed the healing energy into the silver-haired girl.

          Feeling the ether enter her body, her wounds began to heal. Mira shivered at the uncomfortable feeling of flesh moving in such an unnatural way. She’d have to get used to it. She felt her strength return to her as well.

          “How many people can do that?” Mira questioned, testing to see what Shulk would say.

          “I’m the only one in the Colony.” Shulk answered. “We should head there, your wounds aren’t fully healed and it may be a while until I can do that again, it takes a bit out of me.”

          “Got it.” Mira said. “So are we running or fighting?”

          “We don’t really have much reason to provoke anything.” Shulk pointed out. “But fighting works too, assuming that you’ll be able to back me up.”

          “No problem.” Mira replied. “Just need to figure out how to get this sword to work.”

          “I’m sure you’ll get it.” Shulk told her confidently. Mira nodded and followed Shulk through the ravine. It didn’t take long for a Caterpile to notice us. Shulk immediately froze up. _‘Oh right, he’s afraid of caterpillars.’_

          “You OK?” Mira asked, hoping to get Shulk’s attention. Shulk snapped out of his daze.

          “Yeah, sorry.” He amended. “Let’s take care of this one.”

          “Right.” Mira agreed, pulling out Yggralith once more, suddenly regretting the choice of name. Eh, like stated before, she’s named things worse in the past.

          Mira was the first to run up to the Caterpile, she managed to lump Yggralith over her head and whack the beast square on the skull. A loud cracking noise was heard, probably a good thing. She noticed Shulk sneaking behind it.

          “BACKSLASH!” Shulk shouted, jumping a steeply slashing the Caterpile from the back. The Caterpile screeched in pain, it turned around to attack Shulk. It tackled him, knocking it back. Bruises began formed around the location that the Caterpile hit him, Shulk grunted.

          “Shulk!” Mira shouted. The Caterpile began to stalk towards the Homs. Shulk scrambled to get away from the fierce beast.

          “Get away from me!” Shulk shouted, trying to get up. Mira struggled to heave Yggralith into the air, it slammed down on the Caterpile’s back, its guts splattered across the floor. Shulk got up.

          “Cool, some Bouncer Knives! Fiora’s gonna love these!” Shulk exclaimed, searching through the Caterpile’s guts. Mira gave the corpse a disgusted look, she could see the Caterpile’s blood on Shulk’s hands. Certainly more gruesome than the treasure chests that appeared in Xenoblade Chronicles when defeating enemies. Whelp, it made more sense than Little Skeeters dropping treasure chests that were about twice their size.

          “Do you usually look through their guts like that?” Mira asked, a bit disgusted.

          “Yeah.” Shulk answered. “You’d be surprised by what you can find by doing that.”

          “Yeah, it’s kind of funny how there are knives inside of that thing.” Mira agreed. “Can I see them?”

          “Sure.” Shulk handed over the dual knives over to her. Mira grabbed them and experimentally jabbed them at the air. The knives felt fairly comfortable in her hands, at least, more than her sword did.

          “I like these.” Mira commented. “I’m sure your friend will like them. I take it that she usually uses knives like these in battle.”

          “Yeah, that’s Fiora.” Shulk told her. “She’s absolutely ruthless in battle. You should see her Butterfly Step.”

          “I’ll ask her about it.” Mira promised. “Should we heal? Or do you think we should continue onwards?”

          “Let’s keep going for now.” Shulk decided. “We’re not that far from the Colony.”

          “OK, I’ll trust you.” Mira decided, taking a moment to catch her breath. She wasn’t the most fit person out there, probably a bad choice of acquaintances for battle…or the revenge plot that won’t take too long to occur.

          Shulk nodded and continued their walk. They luckily managed to avoid angering most of the enemies in the area. That was a relief.

          As they walked closer, Mira began to see the edge of a small town with some buildings. People were walking around, minding their own business with their own schedules. Shops could be seen, some selling armor, some selling food, some selling curry. The animals knew better than to disrupt the town’s rhythm. This was Colony 9.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I named the sword "Yggralith" based on the boss from XCX.
> 
> Also, true story, my avatar in XCX is named Telethia. Then I found out about the High Entia wings hat and I just couldn't resist.


	2. Meeting Reyn and Dickson

          “Shulk!” A ginger-haired man ran up to Shulk. _‘This must be Reyn.’_

          Reyn ran closer to the pair.

          “Reyn!” Shulk shouted back, watching his friend attempt to squeeze through the crowd of people. “How’s it going?”

          “Good.” Reyn answered, he looked at Mira. Mira looked back, he was certainly taller than she expected, she honestly just assumed when playing Xenoblade Chronicles that Shulk was just that small. Her mistake. “Who’s that?”

          “Mira.” Mira introduced. “I take it that you’re Reyn.”

          “Yep, that’s my name.” Reyn declared. “So what were you two doing? Haven’t seen Mira around here before.”

          “Yeah, I was wandering about that.” Shulk admitted, he turned to Mira. “Where are you from anyway?”

          Mira froze. She honestly should have expected that question. She couldn’t just say she was from Earth; it was destroyed in this game. Mira blinked at the realization. In this universe, Earth had long-since been destroyed, would she even be able to go home?

          “Well, where are you from?” Shulk repeated, snapping her back into reality.

          “Agniratha.” Mira blurted out the first location in Xenoblade Chronicles that came to mind. Agniratha probably wasn’t that good of a decision considering that it’s the Mechonis capital and all, not only that, but Shulk and Reyn have no clue where it is.

          “Agniratha?” Shulk repeated, testing the word in his mouth. “I’ve never heard of it.”

          “It’s long gone.” Mira explained. “Now only Mechon and Telethia corpses inhabit it.”

          “Oh, I’m sorry.” Shulk apologized, he seemed slightly suspicious of her.

          “Don’t bother.” Mira told him, she didn’t like where this was going. Why Agniratha? That was easily the one location in Xenoblade Chronicles that she could _not_ navigate. She really only liked it for the story and music. Shulk turned to Reyn.

          “So, why were you looking for me, Reyn?” Shulk asked. “I mean, I’m sure you have better things to do on your break.”

          “Nah.” Reyn decided. “Just wanted to check on you, figured that you would have gotten yourself into some scuffle at the Mechon wreckage site…again.”

          _‘That explains why Reyn was there at the beginning of the game.’_ Mira decided. _‘I guess I already changed part of the plot before even being here for very long. Just need to master the art of not messing up. If I can reach Alvis or Meyneth without ruining everything, I should be able to get some idea of what to do next.’_

          “It’s not my fault that there are monsters living there!” Shulk shot back.

          “What _is_ your fault is the decision to frequently go alone.” Reyn scoffed. “It looks like this time, you at least had the sense to go with someone.”

          “Actually, she was already there.” Shulk explained. A thought must’ve occurred to Shulk. “What were you doing there exactly?”

          “Sleeping.” Mira answered truthfully.

          “At a mechon wreckage site?” Shulk questioned with mild suspicion. “That isn’t exactly the safest place to take a nap.”

          “Eh, change of pace.” Mira improvised. Shulk gave her an odd look, as if questioning why she would do something like that. Mira returned it with a shrug. She turned to Reyn. “How long is your shift?”

          “I have a few minutes to spare.” Reyn told her. “After that, I’ll head back to Defense Force training. Cornel square-tach isn’t in that good of a mood today. I hear some idiot crashed the mobile artillery into a house.”

          “Sounds nasty.” Shulk commented.

          “I’m sure whoever owns the house is thrilled about that.” Mira pointed out, practically radiating with sarcasm. She wondered if there was some dialog from an NPC that owned the house.

          “Yeah.” Reyn agreed. “The cornel said he’d give me my assignment after break.”

          _‘Really?’_ Mira found herself wondering. _‘Figured that he’d give Reyn the assignment immediately. Eh, probably some logic behind it that I’m missing.’_

          “Speaking of which,” Reyn continued, “my break’s almost over. Need to get back.”

          “You go on ahead.” Shulk decided. “I still need to sell some of the parts I found.”

          “Bye!” With no further word, Reyn walked off, presumably towards the Military District. Shulk turned to Mira.

          “Do you have anywhere to go in particular?” Shulk questioned. Mira shook her head.

          “Not really.” Mira admitted. “I just came to Colony 9, so I don’t really have anywhere to go. Where are you headed?” Stupid question, considering that Shulk _just_ said that he was off to sell some parts, but honestly, Mira never really bothered checking out the shops when playing Xenoblade, they were pretty well-marked on the mini map and it wasn’t like the few parts that she’d managed to collect by that point took up most of the inventory (except in New Game+ where the inventory was already all the way full to begin with).

          “I was going to head to the lab.” Shulk answered truthfully. “I only have a few things to sell. If it doesn’t bother you, I’d really like to examine your sword. It almost reminds me of the Monado.”

          Mira paused, wondering if it was a good idea. It didn’t take her long to decide that it would be fine. “Sure.”

          “Thanks!”

          Shulk then walked up to a merchant, allowing them to look at the supplies presented to them. The merchant was a wearing a dull-red buttoned shirt and grey pants; a relatively simply design compared to most of the characters in Xenoblade Chronicles.

          “That’ll be worth 375 gold.” The merchant said, Shulk nodded and handed over the materials. “Thanks for coming.”

          “See ya.” Shulk replied as he began to walk away, towards the Military District. Mira followed.

          “So, what are you working on?” Mira decided to start up a conversation, maybe she’d be able to get some insight on Shulk’s Monado research that the game didn’t supply.

          “I’m researching the Monado.” Shulk answered. “How much do you already know about it?”

          _‘Quite a bit.’_ Mira thought to herself. She didn’t hesitate to answer. “It’s the Sword of the Bionis. It’s red and selects its wielder. The sword is also fabled to grant its wielder foresight.”

          “Foresight?” Shulk repeated. Mira’s face twisted into an awkward expression. _‘Probably shouldn’t have said that.’_

          “It’s just an old fork-tale.” Mira improvised. “A lot of people know a bit about the sword in Agniratha.” That sentence hurt to say, Mira could already tell that upon meeting the Machina - or possibly even Egil - that her series of lies would be revealed and come tumbling down on her. It already would’ve if the Homs in general knew a bit about Mechonis. “So, why exactly do you intend on learning about the Monado? Wasn’t Dunban able to use it in the Battle of Sword Valley?”

          Shulk frowned. “He was, but during the battle, the Monado took out his right arm.”

          “But can’t he fight with his left arm?” Mira questioned. She got the concern, but she was also beginning to get comfortable enough with the situation to push buttons and see what would happen.

          “He can, but no one knows why the Monado turned against him so suddenly.” Shulk supplied. “Besides, even if Dunban survived using the Monado, Fiora would probably kill him just for attempting to use it.”

          “The Monado is selective on its wielders, correct?” Mira questioned. Shulk looked at her with an intrigued look.

          “It seems that way.” Shulk agreed. “Besides Dunban and Mumkhar, it rejects anyone that touched it. What are you getting at?”

          “During that Battle of Sword Valley, Dunban and Dickson ran directly towards a wave of mechon and destroyed them, correct?” Shulk nodded. “Do you have any clue as to why? Did Dunban say anything?”

          “He said . . .” Shulk’s expression widened, realizing something. “He said that the Monado was controlling him.”

          “So would it not be too far of a stretch to assume that the Monado may be controlled by some higher power? Or that it has a will of its own?” Mira suggested. Shulk thought over this. Mira’s sharp cobalt eyes watched, waiting for a response.

          “That would make sense.” Shulk decided. “But do you have any leads onto that theory? Or any further supporting evidence?”

          “In the center of the Monado’s glass, a set of symbols appear.” Mira explain. “Those symbols are actually words in another language.”

          “Wait, seriously?” Shulk questioned. Mira nodded. “Do you know what they say?”

          “I’m not fluent in Japanese, but I remember what some of them mean. I know a few words, but I don’t really know how to read most of it. I know a small bit of Japanese mythology, emphasis on _small_.”

          “What words do you know?” Shulk questioned.

          “Kami, Sake, Yen, and a few other words.” Mira answered.

          “What do they mean exactly?”

          “Kami means “god”, sake is a type of alcohol in Japan, and yen is the currency.” Mira explained. “Trust me when I say, I mostly just know what the Monado symbols mean by memory more than anything.”

          “You know what the symbols on the Monado are?” Shulk questioned. Mira’s expression twisted, realizing that she probably shouldn’t have mentioned Japanese to begin with, just had to make sure _not_ to mention her practically nonexistent knowledge on Gnosticism; all she particularly remembered about it was that one of the figures in it was called “Monad”, which was also a programming language.

          “Well?” Shulk edged on.

          “Err…” That was about the only thing that Mira could think to say. “Yes?”

          “How exactly do you know about so much about it?” Shulk questioned.

          “There’s quite a few books on the topic in Agniratha.” Mira said, she honestly had no clue on whether or not it was true, but by the time that everyone gets there, it won’t matter anyways. “There’s even a big building in the center that’s shaped like the Monado. Similar to how it looked on its pedestal in Ose Tower.”

          “Ose Tower?” Shulk repeated.

          “You can edge Dickson on about it.” Mira decided. “He probably knows what that is.”

          “OK?” Shulk must’ve decided just to follow along on this. The conversation didn’t continue as they arrived into the dark lab with a crimson blade in it.

          Mira followed behind Shulk as the two walked into his lab.

          “All right, Shulk. How are you?” A voice questioned in a friendly voice. Shulk spun around instinctively. Mira turned around as well. “I see ya brought a friend. Hope you’re not cheating on Fiora.”

          “What? No!” Shulk was blushing madly. He quickly changed the topic. “When did you return to Colony 9?”

          “Just now.” Dickson answered, he looked at the notes that he was holding. “I see you’ve been busy. Looks like your Monado research has been going well. I made the right choice leaving you in charge.”

          Dickson got off the desk that he was sitting on and walked over to the two.

          “Your research notes really helped.” Shulk replied. Mira tried not to react to the obvious foreshadowing and almost succeeded. Shulk noticed her sudden change in face and turned to look at her. “Is something wrong?”

          “No.” Mira said. “Just thinking of something.”

          “And what is that something exactly?” Dickson questioned. “Was there something ever so humorous ‘bout me helping Shulk out with his research?”

          “Kinda.” Mira answered, trying her best to ignore that Dickson was the second-to-final boss and would later shoot Shulk in the back. “Although now that I think about it, I probably shouldn’t find it comedic all things considered.”

          Dickson gave her a questioning look, causing Mira to wonder if he caught on what she meant by that.

          “Shulk, how did you meet her exactly?” Dickson questioned suspiciously.

          “She was by the mechon wreckage site that I usually go to.” Shulk answered. “When I got there, she freaked out and pointed her sword at me.”

          “That’s lovely.” Dickson rolled his eyes. “So, where’s she from?”

          “She that she’s from some place called ‘Agniratha’.” Shulk answered. It wasn’t until just now that Mira realized that Dickson probably knew where Agniratha was. “Heard of it?”

          Dickson raised a brow.

          “Yeah.” He answered. Mira tensed up, anticipating what Dickson would say next. “It’s on the Fallen Arm of the Mechonis.”

          Mira gave a relieved look.

          “You’re from Mechonis?” Shulk asked, looking at Mira in the eyes. “How were you able to settle there without Mechon constantly attacking?”

          “The village there is hidden.” Mira explained. “Debris from Sword Valley sometimes falls around the arm. It’s the only location on either the Bionis or Mechonis where Mechon and Bionis life roam around freely. The wildlife and Mechon keep each other in check.”

          Mira hoped that what she said didn’t sound too scripted. She was just saying what she knew about Fallen Arm as a location: Mechon, broken Mechon, and wildlife. She didn’t see it as all too necessary to mention the Machina or their village.

          “So then, why are you here exactly?” Dickson questioned. “I’ve been there a few times and as far as I can tell, everyone there seems a bit too scared to make themselves known.”

          “Err…” Mira found herself saying that again, Dickson found a hole in her elaborate lie. If she lived on Fallen Arm, why _would_ she need to come to Colony 9. “I…I was actually just here because I wanted to explore the Bionis a bit.”

          Mira wasn’t all too sure of how well her lie would pass as far as Shulk was concerned. There was a long period of awkward silence.

          “Anyway,” Dickson announced, changing the subject. “Shulk, did you find anything new ‘bout the Monado while I was gone?”

          “Yes. It’s still only conjecture, but it’s starting to look like the Monado might be something far more significant than just a weapon for defeating mechon.”

          “I see.” Dickson seemed a bit lost in thought. “And the evidence to support your theory?”

          “It’s the symbol that appears in the center when it’s activated.” Shulk explained. “What I know is, the central piece is composed of multilayered glass. The symbol appears on the top layer. And each layer is constructed differently.”

          “So it’s possible that other symbols could appear on different layers?”

          “Even furthermore, according to Mira, the Monado symbols are actually dialect from a different language.” Shulk added. “Japanese, was it?”

          “Yeah.” Mira confirmed. “The symbol that currently appears on the Monado differs between which power is being used, correct?”

          “Yes.” Shulk confirmed. “We only know of two symbols, those were the two that were used by Dunban: buster and enchant.”

          “The symbol for buster means ‘zan’, which means ‘to behead’.” Mira explained, recalling how she looked for what the Monado symbols were pronounced in Japanese. “The symbol for enchant means ‘ki’, which translates to ‘machine’.”

          “Where’d you learn that?” Dickson questioned.

          “I found it in a library.” Mira lied. Dickson nodded slowly, still looking suspicious.

          “I’ll look for it next time.” Dickson decided. “Well, I’d better get the supplies delivered to the Defense Force. I’ll drop round the HQ and see how they’re getting along.”

          “OK then. I’ll see you.” Shulk decided. Dickson paused, seeming to take something into account. Wasn’t Shulk supposed to go to Outlook Park to talk with Fiora?

          “Shulk. You’re spending too much time in the lab.” Dickson pointed out. “Either that or rummaging around for junk in the scrap yard. It ain’t health for a kid your age. That’s why you’re always looking so pasty. You should get some fresh air every once in a while.” He turned to leave. “All right, I’m off.” He turned towards Mira. “Fancy tagging along? I could use an extra set of arms.”

          “Sure, no problem.” Mira decided, she felt a bit skeptical about this, but she decided that ultimately Dickson wasn’t going to betray the group quite yet. There were at least two people that knew about her.

          She followed Dickson outside of the lab. As they made their exit Mira saw Shulk exiting the lab and heading outside. That memory was soon ignored as they made their way through the commercial district. Dickson’s expression hardly wavered as they travelled.

          It didn’t take long until they reached Dunban’s house. Mira found herself looking at the landmark in interest. She was pretty much just waiting for Fiora to exit and have her conversation with Shulk.

          “That’s Dunban’s house.” Dickson told her. “He lives with his sister, Fiora.”

          Mira nodded. It didn’t take long for Fiora to exit the house.

          “Hey, Fiora!” Dickson greeted.

          “Dickson!”

          “Looks like you’re in a hurry.” Dickson commented. “Where are you off to?”

          “I just thought I’d take Shulk some food.” Fiora admitted. “I’m on my way to the lab.”

          “Shulk’s not there right now.”

          “Really?”

          “I just sent him out to get some fresh air.” Dickson explained. “You know where he’ll have gone.”

          “Outlook Park!”

          “That’s the one.”

          “OK. Thanks, Dickson.”

          Dickson nodded and watched Fiora run off. Mira watched, wondering why Fiora didn’t comment on her appearance. The best answer that she could think of was that Dickson could’ve brought friends before now.

          “Sorry ‘bout that interruption.” Dickson amended. “I left my stuff by Rogrinar Canyon Path. It’s right outside of Tephra Cave.”

          _‘So that’s why Dickson is nowhere around when the Mechon attack.’_ Mira realized. When first playing Xenoblade Chronicles, she was seriously curious as to what happened to Dickson at that time.

          They walked up a long strip of land, there were a few Bunnits, Antols, and Skeeters along the path, but all of them without exception made sure to stay away from Dickson. The entrance to Tephra cave had two guards standing by them.

          “Hello.” One of them greeted. “How’s your day been, Dickson?”

          “It’s been going pretty good.” Dickson answered. “Just dropping by to collect some of the stuff that I got this time ‘round.”

          “Who’s this?” The guard questioned, gesturing to Mira.

          “Just an extra pair of arms and legs to help me get through Tephra Cave.” Dickson explained casually. “If that’s all, I do need to get my stuff. Don’t want any wildlife to get a hold of it.”

          The guard nodded in agreement.

          “Why did you leave it on the other side of Tephra Cave anyway?” The guard inquired.

          “Couldn’t fit my fat Armus into the cave.” Dickson answered. “That tunnel at the entrance doesn’t fit the beasts at all.”

          “Maybe we could send someone to make the entrance bigger.” The guard suggested.

          “Nah, I’ll manage.” Dickson decided. “Sides, you’ll need some pretty serious pest control if you want to accomplish that.”

          The guard nodded, Dickson gestured for Mira to follow him through the cave. The first thing Mira noticed upon entering the cave was how dark it was. Dickson looked over to her.

          “If you want, we can pause so that your eyes have time to adjust.” Dickson suggested. Mira nodded. All she could really see was the silhouettes of some of the enemies. If she remembered correctly, the first room had some Bunnits in it, the second room had a unique Caterpile and others, the third room had Singing Brogs and branched off to a room with a unique Bunnit and the ruins of a High Entian ship that crashed into the Bionis.

          “The first room has a few Bunnits in it.” Dickson informed her. “But stay close to me and they shouldn’t bother you. We can branch off of the main path there and avoid a Caterpile nest and head into a third room with some Brogs in it.”

          “Alright.” Mira decided. Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark cave. She followed Dickson through the caves. Luckily, the Bunnits didn’t really bother the two all that much. It had to be Dickson’s level. There was no other possible explanation. They were dealing with sound type and sight type enemies. Dickson led the charge. He was the one that spoke first.

          “So, where are you _actually_ from?” Dickson questioned. Mira looked at him. “I know you’re definitely _not_ from Agniratha, figured that I’d be able to give him a good lie to chew on. So, like I said, where did you really come from?”

          Mira froze. She paused, Dickson gave her a waiting stare.

          “Some place called Earth.” Mira decided to tell him the truth. She highly doubted that the man’s ever even heard of the planet.

          “I see.” Dickson replied. “Someone mentioned it to me once.”

          “Alvis?”

          Dickson gave her a quizzical look. There was a pause before giving his answer.

          “Yeah. He was the one that told me.”

          There was an awkward length of silence as they walked over a thin bridge of rock. There were enemies below them. Mira felt inclined to grab the hilt of Yggralith.

          “Don’t bother with them.” Dickson advised. “They’ll probably just tear you apart, leaving me to deal with the mess.”

          “OK.”

          It wasn’t until they reached the locked door at the Hidden Warehouse that Mira decided to tell Dickson something important. She wasn’t sure how to put it delicately, so she decided to be blunt.

          “I know about Zanza.” She half-muttered. Dickson stopped and blinked. It took a moment for him to think of something to say.

          “How’d you find out?” He questioned.

          “I knew about Zanza for a long time.” Mira told him. “I know that you work for him.”

          “You hardly know me.” Dickson pointed out. “What did I do to reveal it to you?”

          “I knew beforehand about certain events that would happen in the future should I have never wound up here.” Mira admitted. “But don’t get me wrong, I can’t see the future. It’s entirely different.”

          “I see, so what happens in that future?” Dickson questioned.

          “A lot of people permanently die.” Mira decided to answer. “In the order of Sorean, Metal Face, Gadolt, pretty much the entire High Entia race, Meyneth, Egil, Kallian despite the fact that he probably should’ve died earlier, Lorithia, you, Zanza, and then I have no clue what happens to Alvis.” It didn’t take long for Mira to realize that she probably shouldn’t have said that.

          “In other words, everyone dies.” Dickson summarized. “So what causes Zanza’s death?”

          Mira decided to remain silent. Why did she have to tell Dickson that Zanza dies in the future? She probably shouldn’t have told Dickson that she knew about Zanza in the first place, now that she thought about it.

          “Well? What kills him?”

          “Shulk.” Mira found herself squeak out the name. Dickson frowned.

          “I guess I’ll have to make sure to take care of that runt when the time comes.” Dickson muttered under his breath.

          “How come Shulk has to die anyway?” Mira questioned. Dickson sighed.

          “Look, I’ll unlock the door.” Dickson told her. “We can talk on the way through the cave. I doubt either of us want Shulk overhearing us when he comes through.”

          “OK.” Mira agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, Mira's conversation with Dickson is going to come back to bite her. Mistake #1 out of many.


	3. Fat Armus

          Mira followed Dickson out of the exit of Tephra Cave. Instinctively, she shaded her face from the bright light. She found herself squinting at the Mechonis. Dickson laughed. It didn’t take long for Mira to realize something.

          “Where are the ‘fat Armus’?” Mira questioned, still squinting, but her eyes were no longer shaded. Dickson chuckled.

          A feral roar could be heard as a massive creature with green scales appeared. Golden light could be seen emitted from its wings. The creature took the form of a massive snake. Its mouth lacked a throat as its eye sockets lacked eyes.

          “Is that a Telethia?!” Mira demanded. It looked so much more powerful in real life. Dickson smirked upon seeing her shocked state.

          “Yep.” Dickson confirmed. “Quite the beauty huh? I don’t normally show her to people.”

          Mira managed to calm herself down enough to look at the creature. She could see its almost godly aura. Turquoise ether was surrounding some of its fins. Was it using Soul Read on her?

          “So I take it she’s your ‘fat Armus’.” Mira guessed.

          “You catch on quick.”

          “She’s pretty.” Mira commented. “What’s her name?”

          “Sureny.”

          “That’s a nice name.” Mira says, assuming that Sureny must be the Telethia that Dickson sends at the group in Colony 6. “I’m guessing that you’re not sending the Telethia in fear of causing panic?”

          “Nah, if I frequently brought Telethia to the Colony, people would get used to it.” Dickson explained. “I’m more worried about angering Zanza with the whole ‘Telethia are weapons, they’re not to be used as transportation’.” The Zanza impression was actually pretty spot on. “Also, there’s no way to convince the Machina that I’d be able to control a Telethia without arousing suspicion there.”

          “That makes sense.” Mira decided. “But where exactly do you put your Telethia when on Fallen Arm?”

          “Sureny doesn’t actually need to breath to survive.” Dickson explained. “So she just stays underwater until I’m done dealing with Miqol.”

          “Do Telethia need to eat? Or sleep for that matter?” Mira questioned. She wondered what the Telethia in Alcamoth had to survive off of.

          “Actually no.” Dickson answered. “Telethia only need ether to survive. That’s one of the reasons why I decided to use Sureny for transport opposed to plain old Armus.”

          “The other?” Mira questioned. “Armu are stupid. They get into more trouble than they’re worth. I tried it once. I didn’t even get passed Gaur Plains when the Armu got into a fight with Territorial Rotbart! Can you believe that some tiny weak Armu decided to fight _that thing_?!”

          “So Territorial Rotbart is the overpowered ape in the middle of Gaur Plains, right?” Mira inquired. She remembered a some of the enemy names and types from Gaur Plains and a few others that had been a pain in the butt (Nebula) and a few others such as Chilkins and Sloboses, but that didn’t extend to everything.

          “Ape?” Dickson repeated. “I’ve never heard that word before, but Territorial Rotbart is a giant Gogol that gives a lot of travelers’ trouble.” Mira recognized the name as soon as it was said, but found that she drew blanks.

          “Isn’t that one of the enemies that are mysteriously stronger than Zanza?” Mira questioned. Dickson chuckled.

          “Yeah, I don’t know how Zanza’s able to create creatures that can overpower him, but there’s quite a few of them aren’t there?” Dickson laughed. “You should’ve been there for that one time with Despotic Arsene. Who knew a Bunnit could be so lethal?”

          “Why exactly did Zanza make creatures stronger than him?” Mira questioned. “I get the impression that he’d prefer to be the strongest fish in the pond.”

          “Frankly, you’ll have to ask Alvis that question.” Dickson answered. “He was the only one around when Zanza created most of the life on Bionis.”

          Mira nodded in understanding. Her eyes widened when realizing something.

          “Isn’t there about to be a Mechon attack?!” Mira shouted. “We have to get back to the Colony!” Dickson frowned.

          “There’s a reason that I dragged you out here.” Dickson said. “I wanted to neutralize your threat to Zanza’s plan.” Mira blinked.

          “So you planned on killing me?!” Mira realized.

          “Yes.” Dickson explained. “You’re not part of the future and we can’t risk anything going wrong. Since you just got here, the only people that might be suspicious of your disappearance are Shulk and Reyn, however, they very easily could be convinced that you left to return home.”

          “Why are you telling this to me?” Mira asked, inching away from the man. She _knew_ he was evil, she _knew_ that he’d betray the group, so she _shouldn’t_ have followed him here. “Are you still going to kill me?”

          “Frankly, no.” Dickson answered. “Since you know about Zanza’s plan, I figured that you’re probably here for a reason. Tell me this, who’s side are you on?”

          Mira gulped. Dickson frowned, realizing that he probably scared the girl too much to get her to say anything useful for a while.

          “I’ll give you time to make your decision, but how ‘bout this, don’t screw Zanza over, or else I won’t hesitate to kill you.” Dickson decided that would be a good enough compromise, giving him enough time to verify with the other members of the trinity on whether or not to kill the girl, while also making sure that Mira doesn’t mess up fate until then.

          “W…what do you want me to do now?” Mira stammered. She realized that now in this field outside of Tephra Cave, she was at the mercy of Dickson, between the Telethia and his sabre.

          “We do nothing.” Dickson explained. “I want the events with the Mechon to play out as intended. We don’t need any unnecessary interference.”

          “Understood.” Mira squeaked. The casual tone was quickly switched out in favor of a much tenser atmosphere. Carefully, she sat on the ground. Dickson sat next to her.

          “I hope you don’t mind Sureny laying down behind us, can’t have her acting as a beacon to Egil now can we?”

          Goosebumps spiked on Mira’s arms as the Telethia lazily rubbed itself onto the warm ground. It made an almost draconic purring noise.

          “Lighten up a bit.” Dickson said, he seemed perfectly relaxed. Mira found herself glaring at the man.

          “How do you expect me to be relaxed when you just said that you brought me here to kill me?” Mira growled. “What were you planning to do, throw me off Bionis?”

          “Yep, that’s what I was gonna do with your corpse.” Dickson confirmed. He sounded almost too casual about it. “I was going to make Sureny do all the hard work. Telethia are formidable foes, ya know?”

          “Yes, I know.” Mira growled through her teeth. Dickson frowned, realizing that this was probably going to be the most relaxed that he’d get from Mira.

          Mechon began to soar over them like a black cloud. Mira watched, trying to get her mind off of Dickson’s threat. It was Dickson that spoke first.

          “Do you know how to activate your sword?” Dickson questioned, looking at Yggralith. Mira shook her head. “Want me to teach you?”

          “Why?” Mira spat. “Wouldn’t that only put more at risk of endangering your entire plan? Wouldn’t that make me more capable of fighting back?”

          “Hah! You’ve got ways to go before you could even be considered anything close to a threat to me.” Dickson laughed. “Do you want to be able to fight remotely effectively or not?”

          “Why are you teaching me?” Mira questioned. “Even if it isn’t a threat to you, what could you possibly gain out of it?”

          “A new ally.” Dickson answered. “One that’s competent at their job as well.”

          “I never said that I wanted anything to do with you.” Mira growled. “And isn’t it Zanza that gets to make all the decisions anyways?”

          “Only those with power get a choice in this world.” Dickson told her. “So whether or not you like, you _will_ be training with me.”

          “Then why’d you pose it as a questioned?” Mira challenged. Dickson laughed.

          “To give you the illusion of choice.” Dickson answered. “Now, get up. You’re going to need to know how to swing that weapon around properly.”

          Mira glared at the man, but she abided. The Sureny Telethia would be more than happy to tear her apart if she were to disobey the man.

          “OK, glad to see that you care about your life and death.”

          “How do I activate my sword?” Mira demanded. “I’d rather skip the part where you talk.”

          “Fine, fine.” Dickson said. “You need to will it to activate. If I’m correct and you’re using a Monado, it should be able to function like that.”

          Mira nodded. She grabbed the hilt of Yggralith and pointed it in front of her. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the blade opening up, but all she could think about was Dickson. A couple minutes passed and nothing seemed to happen. She groaned in annoyance. She opened her eyes to see Dickson’s face.

          “I can’t concentrate.” Mira growled. Dickson frowned, it wasn’t hard to figure out why. Mira felt the need to add onto it regardless. “You can’t just can’t expect someone to ignore a death threat like that.”

          Dickson sighed, knowing that he wouldn’t get anything productive done with her.

          “How do you know about major events in the future?” Dickson questioned, giving up on trying to make Mira feel “safe”. “Don’t lie to me. I’m still the one with the sabre and Telethia.”

          “I came from a world called ‘Earth’.” Mira decided to explain, if only to save her own skin. “I’m sure you can get more information out of it from Zanza or Alvis.” She paused, wondering if Dickson would ask about how Zanza or Alvis would know about that information, that didn’t seem to be the case. “Anyways, I got this story once, pictures and all, more like an interactive tape than anything.” Mira was struggling to describe a video game to Dickson. “It was titled ‘Xenoblade Chronicles’. It showed everything that happens in the future, ignoring my presence.”

          “But weren’t you skeptical?” Dickson questioned. “It’s a bit farfetched to wind up in the middle of a story that you perceived as fiction.”

          “You actually believe me?” Mira asked, a bit skeptical. “Doesn’t my story seem a bit, impossible?”

          “Look, kid, I’m over a thousand years old.” Dickson pointed out. “By that age, stuff begins to quit surprising you. I’d be more surprised that you’re taking it so well.”

          “I guess some people take things better than others do.” Mira decided. “Anyways, I ended up here. I didn’t want to mess anything up, but in a sense, it might be a good thing that I showed up. Like I said on our walk here, in the future where I never came here, Zanza dies. I doubt that I could make the future much better for Shulk to begin with considering that I’d have no clue on how.”

          “So you’re on our side?” Dickson questioned, leaning against his Telethia.

          “I’m undecided.” Mira admitted. Dickson glared at her, reminding her that he had nothing to stop him from killing her on the spot. “Although I’m sure you could convince me to join you.” The last part was added quickly.

          “Hmph.” Dickson grunted, apparently deciding to ignore the frantic teenager.

          Mira would’ve wondered how Shulk was fairing, but she already knew. He was either watching Fiora die, about to, or already had. The thought of letting it happen twisted her stomach. It wasn’t right to let the Colony burn whilst she sat away from the chaos with a Telethia protecting the two.

          The grass was damp and cold. It might not have been cold considering that Dickson was able to stand it without even covering his entire chest. She probably just wasn’t used to this weather. She shivered at the thought of how cold Valak Mountain must be.

          Eventually the Mechon swarm died down and spread out. When their numbers began to die down, Dickson got up.

          “You do realize that because of you, Fiora is dead.” Dickson questioned.

          “I don’t feel like I really had much control over the situation.” Mira pointed out. “You were in a way, holding me hostage. Even if I got past you and your Telethia, I doubt I’d be able to take on the Arachnos in Tephra Cave, especially on my own.”

          “Keep making excuses.” Dickson rolled his eyes. “Either way, Sureny is going to do some clean up and we’re heading back to Colony 9.”

          Dickson began to head back into the cave.

          “What about your stuff?” Mira asked.

          “I’ll get it later.” Dickson decided. “Sides, already got most of it.”

          Mira nodded. She followed him into the cave. Her guard was up, not that it would do any good for her if Dickson were to change his mind and decide to kill her on the spot. He was practically as powerful as Zanza while she was nearly killed by one of the weakest enemies on Bionis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why does Dickson need to use his Telethia? Why bother training stupid and weak Armus to carry your stuff around when you already have a flying fish at your disposal? But seriously, Dickson is never shown to have any Armus and they don't appear in the Valak Mountain flashback. While it is possible for him to have used the Colony 6 transporter, I personally prefer the idea of him using his Telethia to transport things around . . . must hide fish.
> 
> Also, something occurred to me, given how Riki calls Dunban "Dundun" so much, it feels weird hearing him refer to Dickson as "Dickson", I seriously think that he should refer to Dickson as "Dickdick". Then I realized that I was thinking that Riki should call Dickson "Dick Dick" . . . still sounds weird for Riki to call him "Dickson".


	4. Getting Shulk to Ignore the Mechon attack in the Face of Curiosity

          The moment that Mira exited Tephra Cave, it was a mad dash to Colony 9, a mad dash to get away from Dickson. Almost every enemy must’ve been chasing her on the way. She didn’t particularly care, she just wanted to distance herself from the man that just threatened her life.

          It didn’t take long for someone to notice the girl running down Tephra Hill with probably every enemy in the area chasing her. Yggralith was significantly slowing her down with its heavy weight. Dunban must’ve been the first one to notice the rampant enemies. He ran out of his house with his katana ready.

          He charged at the enemies, defeating them all with merely a few slashes. Soon, all of the creatures lay dead in front of him. Mira blinked.

          “Sorry for causing you all that trouble, sir.” Mira apologized. The colony still had some fires to put out, but the mechon were gone. At once, she noticed the blood on Dunban’s face. “Are you alright?”

          “Yes, I’m fine.” Dunban answered. “Who are you?”

          Mira completely forgot that she hadn’t been “introduced” to Dunban.

          “Mira.”

          “Dunban. You must be the person that Shulk was talking about.” Dunban commented. “He’s been wondering what happened to you after the Mechon attack.”

          “Sorry.” Mira apologized. “I completely missed it. Dickson and I were in Tephra Cave, tending to his ‘fat Armus’ as he put it.”

          “MIRA!!! GET BACK OVER HERE!” A voice shouted in the distance, Dickson. “WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

          Dunban gave her a look. Mira tried to pretend that nothing happened.

          “We’re right here.” Dunban shouted, beckoning his friend with his left arm. It didn’t take long for Dickson to run over to the pair. He glared at Mira, clearly unhappy. She however, got the impression that Dickson wasn’t going to kill her in front of Dunban.

          “Look, kid. Don’t ever do that again.” Dickson growled. He turned to Dunban. Dunban was frowning.

          “Mira told me that you two completely missed the Mechon assault.” Dunban told him. “When it started, it didn’t occur to you to help?”

          “It did, but frankly, I don’t think that Mira would do well if we were to encounter a Mechon.” Dickson explained. Dunban’s frown deepened. “Besides, we were at the opening of Tephra Cave, the part near Bionis Leg. We probably wouldn’t make it to you in time anyways. How’s Fiora doing.”

          “She didn’t make it.” Dunban explained. “There was a Mechon with a face, the Monado wasn’t able to hurt it. The Mechon killed her.”

          “Where’s Shulk?” Mira questioned. “From what he said, he seemed pretty close to this Fiora. Who was she?”

          “She knew Shulk since they were children.” Dunban explained. “Fiora is also my sister.”

          Mira nodded, she already knew this information, she just didn’t want to say a comment that she shouldn’t have known, now seemed like the best time to ask about Fiora.

          “You said that the Monado couldn’t damage the Mechon with a face.” Dickson pointed out. “Any clue as to why?”

          “Shulk commented on these red glowing lines, surrounding the mechon.” Dunban explained. “Those may be related.”

          “Or they could just be some kind of branding.” Dickson suggested. “Who knows?”

          “That is indeed possible.” Dunban agreed. He turned to Mira. “Shulk and Reyn are currently residing in my house. Do you care to join?”

          “Sure.”

          Dunban’s house was small, but it had a nice appearance. Shulk and Reyn could be seen sitting by the kitchen table. Mira found it odd that there wasn’t some kind of couch, but she decided against commenting on it. For all she knew, couches easily might not exist on Bionis.

          “Hey, Mira.” Shulk called, his voice seemed almost devoid of energy. He looked tired as well. The game didn’t show the mourning; it simply skipped until the part where Shulk decides to leave on his journey.

          “I heard about what happened to your friend.” Mira said, maybe if she didn’t go with Dickson, she might have saved her, but would she? She knew that Fiora would later be revived as Meyneth, which was essential for Xenoblade’s plot.

          “Fiora.” Mira shifted awkwardly. She wasn’t quite sure how to approach this. She was young enough so that no one in her family has died. “Why didn’t the Monado work?! I saw its movements before it struck, but I couldn’t do anything.”

          “When did you get that vision?” Mira questioned. She immediately regretted her choice of questions. Shulk turned to her.

          “How do you know about my visions?” Shulk questioned suspiciously. “You weren’t even here when I grabbed the Monado.”

          “The Monado is kind of like a computer.” Mira explained. “It senses the ether surrounding it and acts accordingly. The amount of ether in the surrounding atmosphere is just one big equation. What happens next is a matter of reading the ether and using said equation to predict the most likely event to occur in the future.” She noticed everyone’s wide stare. Her cheeks brightened at the sudden attention. “…at least, from what I can tell.”

          “So…you’re saying that everything that happens and will happen can be determined based on the amount of ether in the surrounding area?” Dunban summarized slowly, trying to wrap his head around the flurry of words that rushed out of Mira’s mouth. This honestly wasn’t the first time that she’s blurted a long set of words and completely forgot what she said immediately after.

          “Correct, the Monado is not bound to-”

          “Let’s save the whole Monado stuff for later.” Dickson interrupted. Mira frowned.

          “Yeah, I think that it’d be best that I have some notes to take for this.” Shulk decided. “Since the lab’s caved in, it’ll be a while before I can get my Monado Research.”

          “That’s alright, I’ve got some paper here.” Dunban said, getting up to collect some pencils and paper. Shulk thanked him.

          It took a few minutes for Shulk and Dunban to gather the pencil and paper. While waiting, it was Reyn to sound first.

          “So how did you get all this information about the Monado?” Reyn questioned.

          “She claims to be from some Homs colony on Mechonis.” Dickson answered for her. Reyn perked from this information.

          “You’re from Mechonis?” Reyn questioned. Mira nodded anxiously, she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to hold that terribly put together lie. “What’s it like?”

          “I’m from the Fallen Arm.” Mira explained. “During the battle between Bionis and Mechonis, the Bionis cut off one of the Mechonis’s arms. That location became a good place to settle due to not only due to having resources available, but despite being closer to the Mechonis, we’ve got a much better understanding of Mechon technology. The Mechonis also makes for a great source of resources.”

          “Uh…do you mean the armor that the Mechon are made from?” Reyn asked, trying to wrap his head around Mira’s poorly executed explanation.

          “Yep.” Mira confirmed. “We actually have anti-mechon weaponry.”

          “We’ll have to check that out some time.” Reyn declared. Dickson got up. “Is something wrong Dickson?”

          “I just got this sudden pain in my neck.” Dickson explained. “That’s all.”

          “OK, well, see you ‘round.” Reyn declared. Dickson waved goodbye and exited the building. Mira gave a confused look towards the direction that he left. He wasn’t micromanaging her? She honestly imagined that he’d continuously watch her to make sure that she doesn’t screw everything up.

          “Where’s he going?” Mira wondered out loud.

          “Don’t know.” Reyn answered. “He usually disappears on the spot like that. It’s always ‘this sudden pain in the neck’.”

          “I see.”

          “Hey, we found some paper!” Shulk called, coming down the stairs with a huge stack of paper, Dunban was smirking, walking behind the young man. It seemed that Shulk put his thoughts about Fiora to the side in order to learn more about the Monado.

          “OK, I’ve got everything ready.” Shulk declared. Mira blinked at the large piles of paper that Shulk has collected.

          “You do realize that I lack any sort of evidence whatsoever to support anything I say about the Monado?” Mira clarified.

          “That’s OK.” Shulk said. “I’ll look to see what I can prove. You seem pretty knowledgeable on the Monado though.”

          “Where were we when you left to gather the paper?” Mira questioned, hoping to avoid sounding redundant.

          “You were talking about how the Monado allows Shulk to see the future.” Dunban answered. “Something about an equation and using the surrounding ether.”

          “Do you know what that equation is?” Shulk asked hopefully. “Maybe if we can find the equation, we might be able to build a machine to measure ether and predict the future based off of that. The range would also be helpful.”

          “I don’t know what the range of the ether measured is, but I imagine that it would extend past the Bionis and Mechonis since it is possible for you to get visions of events that will occur on Mechonis. I don’t know the equation either.” Shulk speedily wrote down everything that Mira said.

          “Do you know how far into the future the Monado can predict?” Shulk questioned. Mira thought about this, the furthest into the future that she could think of was the vision that Shulk gets of him fighting Lorithia, but when exactly does Shulk get that vision? If she remembers correctly, it was when meeting Melia? “I don’t know exactly, maybe a couple months at least?”

          “Can you write down any of the Monado symbols?” Shulk questioned.

          “Not really.” Mira admitted. “I know the general shape for kami. Besides that, I can draw the symbol for person, sort of. Once I drew it backwards and someone who was actually fluent in the language corrected me.”

          “What was their name?” Shulk asked. Mira immediately swept her mind for names.

          “Chara.” That was the one that came out…of course. It didn’t matter, at least she didn’t say the name of someone in Xenoblade Chronicles; Shulk would have no way of knowing about Undertale.

          “Chara? That’s an interesting name.” Shulk commented. _‘Really? I’d file almost every name in Xenoblade Chronicles as “interesting”.’_

          “Anyways,” Shulk continued, “do you know what powers can appear on the Monado?”

          “Buster, Enchant, Shield, Speed, Purge, Cyclone, Armor, and Eater.” Mira listed off the Monado arts that Shulk could use. She also mentally noted that Jump and Smash existed in Super Smash Brothers.

          “We already know what Buster and Enchant do, so what do the other ones do?” Shulk inquired.

          “Shield creates a barrier around everyone in the party, Speed greatly increases the agility of one party member, Purge removes auras and prevents them from activating for a given amount of time, Cyclone topples enemies inflicted with break, and I don’t know what Armor and Eater do outside of what their names would suggest.”

          “How do you activate these features?” Shulk questioned, probably hoping to be able to access them now that Mira hinted at them.

          “I honestly have no idea.” Mira admitted. “I’ve never used any sort of Monado before.”

          “You said ‘any sort’, are you implying that there is more than one Monado?” Dunban questioned, intrigued by Mira’s choice of wording.

          “Yes.” Mira answered. “For example, the sword I’m using looks like a Replica Monado, but I have no clue how to activate it. A bit of a waste really.”

          Shulk’s eyes widened at the revelation.

          “You’re saying that you’re using a Monado?!” Shulk demanded. Mira shrugged.

          “By the looks of it.” Mira said. “Although, don’t get me wrong, I haven’t had much of a chance to test that theory.” She glanced at Shulk. “How did you activate the Monado anyways?”

          “Oh, it’s just a matter of sheer willpower.” Shulk explained. “I needed it to work and it responded to me. Maybe Yggralith doesn’t work that way? Otherwise it should be relatively easy to activate.”

          “And even if you were to activate it, there’s no saying whether it would reject you or not.” Dunban pointed out.

          “Perhaps.” Mira muttered, suddenly deeply focused on her sword. It’s silver hues were peculiar, now that she had a better view of it, the sword didn’t quite look like Replica Monado V; it’s edge was a bit slimmer. She also failed to notice the thin elaborate golden lines weaving around the ivory blade. The coloring made her think of Zanza’s clothing.

          “Maybe I could test it out?” Shulk offered, intrigued by Mira’s strange blade. “I mean, neither of us really know much about it.”

          “That would be nice.” Mira decided. Shulk gave her a patient stare. It took a moment for Mira to realize that he meant that he wanted the blade _now_. “…OK, here.”

          Shulk nearly dropped the heavy sword once he was holding on to it. He grabbed onto the hilt of the blade, he didn’t appear to have a very stable grasp of it. Regardless, he managed to activate the sword. A thin grey beam sprang out from the center as the two side pieces were shoved to the side. His initially unstable grasp on Yggralith immediately became less shaky.

          “That’s odd.” He muttered. “The sword just got lighter. There’s no retaliation either.”

          “What I don’t get is why the blade’s grey.” Mira observed. All of the Replica Monados in the game had a blue beam, similar to the authentic ones. A question formed in Mira’s mind. “What’s the blade for the Monado made out of?”

          “Ether.” Shulk answered. “Similar to everything else. However, the ether in the Monado seems to be an ether-sensitive type, meaning that it only affects certain types of ether compounds.”

          “Ether compounds?” Mira repeated, confused by Shulk’s explanation. Shulk gave her a questioning look.

          “That’s pretty basic knowledge.” Shulk explained. “It’s basically how ether is matched together and interacts with other types of ether. For example, the ether in various types of ether crystals have different build-ups than the ether inside of the common Bunnit.”

          “How is that tested for?” Mira’s curiosity was beginning to outweigh all senses of caution. Shulk sighed. “There’s no need to, everything’s been test for ages ago.”

          “But what about evolution?!” Mira demanded. “How are you supposed to account for how _new_ organisms are made up?”

          Shulk gave her a confused look. “Everything from Bionis has been the way it was for thousands of years. There hasn’t been any ‘change’.”

          “How can you be so certain?!” Mira questioned. It was Reyn that answered this time.

          “If there’s a creature out there that we don’t know about, then we’ll know.” Reyn explained. “I don’t know about all this fancy stuff, but we can tell what a creature is just by looking at it.” This only confused Mira more. Thinking back to the Caterpile incident, the only reason that she assumed that it was level 1 was because it was near the beginning of the ‘game’ and all of the enemies were below level 5.

          “What Reyn means to say is that due to the ether being emitted from organisms, we can sense the power levels of our enemies.” Shulk explained, noticing Mira’s confused expression. “We still have no idea how it works considering some of our bigger problems.” Shulk’s face immediately darkened. Mira realized that he must’ve finally gotten an unwelcome reminder of Fiora’s death.

          Speaking of unfriendly reminders, it finally occurred to Mira that explaining how the Monado works to Shulk very likely will mess with his adventure. She could only hope that Dickson wouldn’t be too upset about her acting so off guard. Mira got up and grabbed her sword.

          “Mira, where are you going?” Dunban questioned.

          “I’d like to try to get Yggralith to work for me.” Mira answered honestly. It was a bit sudden, but she was on the edge about whether or not to join Shulk on his adventure and she’d like to at least be able to properly wield her weapon.

          “Oh, I see.” Shulk commented. Mira nodded and left the building. She needed to find a remote area that she could go to without too many enemies in the way, leaving Tephra Cave and the Mechon Wreckage Site out. Outlook Park seemed too open, maybe if she headed down towards the beach, but there were still plenty of enemies there that would happily rip her apart if given the chance. It wasn’t until just now that she realized how difficult being low leveled had to be, considering that everything was either your level or higher.

          After a couple minutes of trying to make a choice, Mira decided to go down to the beach to train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me if there are any logic gaps since I realized earlier today that those tend to wind up in my work, specifically the part about the ether. My theory is that Zanza didn't have creatures evolve like they would on Earth, instead he based them off of a single body and gave them different coloring and sizes depending on how he saw fit. My evidence for this is:  
> \- Why do Homs and High Entia look so similar if High Entia supposedly "evolved" from Telethia  
> \- If the High Entia "evolved" from Telethia, then it shouldn't be possible for them to transformed into Telethia the way that they did since evolution takes time and generations to occur due to a change in the environment, not over the time span of a few seconds to a minute.  
> \- Why would some organisms evolve immunity to a weapon that they've never encountered (the Homs, presumably Nopon, and High Entia towards the Monado), but some organisms under the same principles aren't immune to the Monado (Tirikins, Kromar, and presumably Chilkins towards the Monado).   
> \- Strange how Hand Bunnits look like Despotic Arsenes despite there being over a 100 level difference
> 
> I don't know, I think that list became me ranting about some of the enemy designs and logic behind the game play. Either way, it's probably not that important to the rest of the story.


	5. Experience Grinding and NPC Related Stuff

          Despite Mira being in Colony 9 for less than a day, she could tell that the streets were far more empty than usual. She made a last minute decision to see if there was any other location than could be easily accessed from the Colony. She didn’t entirely remember the Colony 9 map, to be fair, Mira couldn’t really navigate any of the towns or cities in Xenoblade Chronicles; that included the Refugee Camp. That didn’t necessarily mean that she couldn’t navigate some of the other locations, for example, the Bionis Interior Post Mechonis Core was somehow manageable.

           She reached the tall white structure between the Military, Residential, and Commercial Districts. She couldn’t quite recall the name, but she remembered the place as that location where Shulk and Reyn had to fight Mechon and on her first play through of the game, she didn’t topple any of the mechon yet somehow survived - that strategy didn’t work for the Xord fight.

          Mira frowned realizing that she was imagining a fourth nonexistent district where there was only that giant lake underneath Colony 9. She could see a purple Nopon leaning against four trained Armus.

          “Hello.” A man said. Mira spun around to see a man with blond hair slightly down, he had brown eyes and wore a velvet shirt. He had short brown pants and long black shoes. Mira decided that he kind of looked like Yelv from Xenoblade X, but she kept that thought to herself. “I don’t believe we’ve crossed paths before.”

          “No, we haven’t.” Mira agreed. There was an awkward pause as the two people stared at each other. “So, what’s your name?”

          “Kenny Rohan.” The man answered. “I come here occasionally to look at the lake in hope to gain inspiration for my art.”

          While Mira did fancy herself as someone who enjoyed art, she wasn’t the type of person that could draw the same thing twice. Most of her drawings were more along the lines of sketches opposed to all out paintings. A few of them were colored in, but Mira didn’t use the best materials out there for going all out. Even ignoring her sketches, Mira had some relation to musical arts; having played the cello since 5th grade. Even _then_ , Mira had taken martial arts for five years. Yes, they were different types of art, but they were still art.

          “So, what type of art do you do?” Mira decided to ask.

          “Paintings, drawing, sketches, that type of thing.” Kenny answered casually. “So, what are you doing at this fine hour ma’am?”

          “I was just hoping to find somewhere good to train.” Mira answered. She gestured her sword. “I still haven’t really worked out how to use this thing.”

          “I see.” Kenny commented. “By the way, I never caught your name.”

          “Mira.”

          “Well, Mira, if you’re looking for a good place to train, I’m not really the most qualified person to ask, but if you were headed to the Military District, don’t bother, only soldiers and those in the Weapons Development Lab are allowed there. Although, I doubt it would be a very good place to train anyway simply due to the amount of commotion that goes on there.”

          “Thanks. I’ll look for somewhere else.” Mira thanked. “It was nice meeting you.”

          “You too.” Kenny answered. Without any more need for conversation, Mira headed back to the Commercial District and headed towards the beach that she initially set out for.

          She didn’t particularly pay much attention to any of the NPCs as she strolled through the streets of Colony 9 - although to be honest, there weren’t that many people to begin with, most people were probably mourning or something.

          “Hey, you!” A female voice shouted as Mira began to leave the Commercial District and enter the bridge leading out of the Colony. Mira froze. “What are you doing leaving the Colony at this hour?”

          Mira turned around to see a girl with blond hair, she had two pigtails and was wearing safety goggles(?). She had emerald eyes and was wearing an outfit not too far from a dark blue outfit that could be worn by Homs Fiora.

          “I was just heading out to train.” Mira explained, no longer in the mood for conversation. She turned heel and began to walk away.

          “I’m not done!” The woman shouted. “You should at least bring a friend with you.”

          “You’re welcome to come if you want to.” Mira muttered. “I’m not gonna stop you.”

          “Great!” The woman declared. “I’ll give you advice and stuff. By the way, the name’s Dorothy.” Dorothy ran up her.

          “Mira.”

          “Nice to meet you.” Dorothy declared, holding a hand out to shake. Mira took it. “But enough delay, like you said, you have some training to get to. I can help you out, I’ve been in the Defense Force for more than a few years.”

          Mira nodded and led Dorothy to the shore that she planned on training at. The humming of Skeeters could be heard, almost like moths or crickets.

          “OK, let’s get down to business!” Dorothy declared. “So, what training did you have in mind?” Mira gave an almost guilty smile.

          “You see; the sword I’m using…I was just hoping to activate it.” Mira admitted. Dorothy gave her a quizzical look. “Just give me some time to figure it out.”

          “Well…whatever suits you.” Dorothy decided. “I’m not gonna push you past your limits.” Mira nodded. She decided to ignore Dorothy for the time being.

          She focused intensely on Yggralith. Did she need to do something with the surrounding ether or something? Perhaps it was something that Homs took as a given. She’d need to think about this later, right now she just needed to figure out how to activate the blade.

          A solid five minutes passed with no results despite Mira’s efforts.

          “Um…is something supposed to happen?” Dorothy finally asked awkwardly. Mira snapped and gave the Defense Force soldier a death glare.

          “You know what? Since _I_ can’t activate the sword, how about _you_ do it?” Mira decided, beyond peeved that she couldn’t even activate the Replica Monado, Shulk managed no problem. Maybe it was a Shulk thing, or it could be a Homs thing, only one way to find out.

          “Well…OK?” Dorothy eyed the sword suspiciously, but picked it up nonetheless. A silver blade of light revealed itself from the center of the sword. Dorothy gave a surprised scream and dropped the blade immediately after. “W…what the?! That was a Monado?!”

          “Yep.” Mira confirmed. “Haven’t been able to activate it.”

          “Well, that’s good and all, but you could have at _least_ warned me.” Dorothy seemed rather angry with Mira. “It’s a _Monado_ , do you have any clue what that thing’s done to anyone that’s so much as touched it?!”

          “They get flung around uncontrollably.” Mira answered. Dorothy’s eyes narrowed.

          “The ones that get off light do.” Dorothy scolded. “Others are sent to the hospital with ether overloads, deficiency, defection, you name it.”

          “Alright, got it.” Mira said, picking Yggralith up. The sword was still trembling; this might be the most ideal time to try activating it.

          Mira took a deep breath and focused all her will into the sword. Some of the ether from Dorothy must’ve reacted with Mira, causing Yggralith to activate. The weight from the sword seemed to immediately evaporate. A strange sensation overwhelmed Mira, telling her to turn around. Mira obeyed it to find a group of Antols creeping towards the two.

          Dorothy jumped. “Dang it! I don’t have my weapon with me!” She cursed. “Mira, this is all on you!”

          “Understood!” Mira shouted back, eyes intensifying on the Antols. She swung Yggralith in an ark, entering a battle stance. The group of Antols stalked towards her. One began to charge at her. The strange feeling that warned her to turn around now yelled at her to jump left. She obeyed. As she did so, she did an upward slash in the direction that she’d just been in, the Antol ran right into it, cutting the creature in half. _‘Wow, this sword’s powerful.’_

          The other Antols began to back away slightly. From behind her, an Antol attempted to attack, Mira felt the attack coming and swiftly turned around to cut the Antol in half. The attack hit the Antol while it was right in the air. In a flurry of attacks, all of the Antols laid dead around her.

          “Wow! That was amazing!” Dorothy cheered. “How’d you do that?”

          “Once I managed to activate the sword, it was as if it was giving me the instructions on how to use it.” Mira admitted, she hesitated to deactivate it. Experimentally, she tried reactivating it. To her surprise, it worked. “I think that it was your ether that allowed me to activate the sword.”

          “Really? But what was it about _my_ ether?” Dorothy asked.

          “Probably timing.” Mira admitted. “I activated the sword almost immediately after you dropped it after all. The remaining ether from you that went into the sword was likely able to substitute for my lack of ether.”

          “Oh, well, that makes sense.” Dorothy said. “Then shouldn’t you work on fighting while the sword’s deactivated?”

          “I guess.” Mira muttered. “Although it would be a bit easier to be able to activate it.” A thought occurred to her. “Actually, it would be a _lot_ better for everyone if I just handed the sword over to someone that can actually use it.”

          “True, but, no one really knows how to use it, so you _are_ fair game.” Dorothy commented. Mira frowned at this explanation.

          “But there are certainly people more experienced with a sword than I am.” Mira argued. “That kind of power really shouldn’t be wasted on me.”

          “Are you kidding?!” Dorothy demanded. “I’ve never seen such a skilled swordsperson!”

          “That wasn’t me, that was my sword.” Mira commented. “Earlier today, a common Caterpile almost killed me.”

          “Well, I can tell you this, those things are a _lot_ tougher than Caterpiles.” Dorothy commented. “Anyway, now that you’ve got the sword working, how about we grind a bit on some enemies?”

          “Alright.” Mira agreed. She didn’t particularly hate grinding and it would get her stronger. It didn’t take her long to find an Armu, she activated her blade.

          “What are you doing?! Those are Baby Armus!” Dorothy shouted. “They’ll easily rip you apart!” It was a bit too late for that observation as the Armu already saw her. The dinosaur-yak creature stalked up towards her. Mira activated Yggralith. She gave a pleased hum, knowing that she could finally use it properly.

          She swiftly slashed the creature, unlike the Antols, Yggralith didn’t slash through its skull, instead, the sword bounced off, creating a painful red mark on the Armu’s face. Blood began to ooze from the wound. This only further enraged the Armu. It charged at Mira, she tried sidestepping, but she was a bit too slow. The attack flung her across the ground. The Armu then attempted to crush her. Mira held Yggralith protectively in an attempt to block the Armu’s attacks. Dorothy was frantically trying to push the heavy creature off of her. Mira felt that her arms were about to drop from its heavy weight.

          Without warning, the Armu gave a cry of surprise as it was flung off of Mira. A blue beam of light.

          “What the? Shulk?!” Mira breathed, not expecting the Heir to the Monado to come to her aid. Shulk was breathing heavily.

          “Let’s talk after we finish dealing with this thing.” Shulk breathed. Mira nodded in agreement, watching the creature get up.

          It immediately tried to plow Mira down again. This time, she was prepared and immediately jumped out of the way. With the Armu temporarily positioned with its back facing the two combatants, Shulk took the opportunity to jump and land a vertical slash across its back. The Armu screamed in pain, turning around to deal with the two. It charged at Shulk this time, he managed to block the attacks and hold his ground. With the Armu distracted, Mira slashed at one of its back knees, tearing the leg off.

          Once again the Armu turned around, seeming undecided on who to agro. Shulk rushed over to the side and jumped while doing an upwards diagonal slash. Once again, the Armu’s attention turned. Mira noticed its exposed neck, she didn’t hesitate to go for the kill.

          Armu blood splattered across the ground. Shulk ignored it for the meantime.

          “Aren’t you going to look for the random stuff that winds up in there?” Mira questioned. Shulk shook his head.

          “What were you doing, attacking those things?” Shulk scolded. “Dunban’s one of the only few in the colony capable of taking them on _alone_.”

          “Sorry.” Mira apologized. “I figured out how to activate Yggralith and I got a little carried away.” Shulk glared at her.

          “You _do_ realize that you can’t just randomly decide to kill all the monsters in the area.” Shulk growled at her. “If it attacks you, fine, same applies if it’s a danger to others, but you can’t just randomly kill stuff because you feel like it.” Mira felt a sudden sense of guilt wash over her. In the game, killing Baby Armus meant literally nothing, but now that this was real, she began to feel the implications of what she just did. “Are you hurt?”

          Mira paused, mind scrambling to respond. “I-I’m fine.” Mira stuttered. “I’ll be more careful next time.” She paused for a moment. “Why did you come out here?” The moment those words came out of Mira’s mouth, she realized that the question was rather stupid. Shulk must’ve seen a vision of something serious happening.

          “I saw a vision of you getting attacked by Antols, and losing.” Shulk answered. “But when I got here, you were fighting an Armu?”

           Mira pondered over this for a moment. Did Shulk’s visions not account for her or did she somehow change fate? It was Shulk that came to a conclusion first.

          “Maybe since you could activate your Monado, you changed the future before I even got there?” Shulk guessed. “Did you get this feeling as if time had stopped and everything around you was frozen save you and the enemy that was about to attack?”

          “No.” Mira answered. Thinking deeper about her fight. “But I did get this feeling of where everything was, almost like a sixth sense.”

          “Can you go into more detail?” Shulk questioned, trying to figure out what was going on.

          “I felt that an Antol was attacking, I believe it was at the time of the attack.” Mira tried to explain. “Anyways, it was a matter of knowing, I didn’t see a visual warning or anything.”

          “It likely just means that the Monados that we’re using work differently.” Shulk speculated. Mira nodded, it made the most sense so far. “Anyways, we should head back. Do you have anywhere to stay?” Mira paused, having not really thought that much about it until just now. She shook her head. “Then you can spend the night with me.”

          “OK.” Mira agreed, not really being in much of a position to say no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, Dorothy went home after Shulk and Mira left.


	6. Finding a Place to Stay for the Night

 

When Mira agreed to spend the night at Shulk’s house, it didn’t cross her mind that Dickson also lived there. Upon entry, the man almost immediately gave her a warning glare. Mira tried to act as if  it were nothing, she’d rather not blow everything while he was watching. 

“So Mira, what brings you here?” Dickson questioned. Mira’s body immediately tensed at his presence.  

“I-I needed somewhere to stay for the night.” Mira answered, trying to avoid angering him. Subtlety wasn’t exactly her strong-point. Dickson frowned and scanned her expression for a minute, as if trying to decipher whether or not she was lying. Eventually he managed to make up his mind. 

“Very well, you can stay.” Dickson grunted. “But under one condition: you tell me everything you know.” 

“Why would that be necessary?” Shulk questioned. “She seems like a perfectly normal Homs.” 

“I just want to get clarification about where she came from.” Dickson answered. Shulk nodded, understanding where he was coming from. Mira seriously regretted claiming to have come from Agniratha. He turned towards Mira. “I’d like to have a word with you in private.” 

“No.” Mira replied. She wasn’t going anywhere with Dickson after he threatened to kill her. Dickson groaned, knowing where she was coming from. 

 _“It’s alright Dickson, you don’t have to_ _both getting my vessel out of the conversation_ _.”_ A new voice said, it was Zanza’s voice. Mira turned to see that Shulk’s eyes were glowing bright blue. _“Besides, I’d much rather hear what she has to say_ _than listen to your report_ _.”_  

          “Very well.” Dickson replied, knowing better than to argue with the god of Bionis.  

Mira blinked,  now frozen in fear. If either Zanza or Dickson decided that she wasn’t worth keeping around, there wasn’t much stopping them from disposing her. Zanza walked up to her casually. 

 _“_ _Why are you here, Mira?”_ Zanza questioned. He noticed the tense look on her face. _“You can forgive my disciple for_ _threatening you earlier today, it was not his place.”_  

           “What do you know about me?” Mira asked, failing to hide the fear in her voice. Zanza frowned.  

          _“More than you'd likely appreciate me knowing.”_ Zanza answered, allowing the words to slide off his tongue easily. _“_ _But for the sake of moving this conversation along, all I'll get to the point. You are powerful, Mira, and you have a unique weapon on your back, will you be my_ _disciple_ _?"_  

Mira paused, thinking about the question. 

"And what would happen if I were to say no?" Mira questioned. "What would you do if I were to express my distrust for the situation?" 

 _"There is no need."_ Zanza answered. _"I do not expect you to grasp exactly what we're working for, but I do expect you not to immediately discard our intents and purposes."_  

"What do you want from me?" Mira questioned. She was trying to avoid offending the god and was prepared to flee if necessary. 

 _"Did I not_ _just explain?"_ Zanza questioned. _"You would be a powerful_ _ally and a dangerous enemy. Aren’t you tempted by the thought of immortality?_ _"_  

"Meh." That was pretty much the best response Mira could come up with. Zanza frowned.  

 _"How about this, you_ ** _will_** _be_ _joining us whether you like it or not."_ Zanza threatened. _"I don't have time for your difficulty."_  

"OK, got it, but quick question: why is there a bunnit on Bionis that could rip you apart?" Mira questioned, realizing that now probably wasn't the best time to talk about Despotic Arsenes, but then there probably wasn't _going_ to be a good time for that. 

 _"You're concerned about Despotic_ _Arsenes_ _?"_ Zanza questioned slowly, trying to process what he just heard. _"_ ** _That_** _is your one big question?"_  

"Yep, it's just something that's always bothered me." Mira explained. "You build yourself up to be an all mighty god, but then there's a _bunny_ that could take you down no problem. I'd also like to add that there are Telethia that could do the same which you do nothing with. To add to it, Despotic Arsenes isn't the only Bunnit that could take you down; there are also arachnos, Dineos Sauroses, Lexoses, Avalanche Abaasy, Sloboses, and you get the point. So why are all these lifeforms on Bionis and therefore from _you_ more powerful than you are?" 

 _"What, you think it isn't possible for me to create something more powerful than myself?"_ Zanza questioned. 

"I'm not asking how, I'm asking why." Mira clarified. She was getting a little too comfortable with talking to the god of Bionis. Zanza gave her a death glare. 

"That's it." Dickson eventually said. "Get out." He raised his sabre at Mira. "You're no longer welcome here. Find somewhere else to stay. And our deal still stands, if you screw anything up, don't think I'll hesitate to find you and shoot." 

"I won't." Mira promised, promptly leaving the house. As soon as she got out, she proceeded to get away from there, realizing that she probably just angered Zanza with her comment about the Bunnit. 

Not having anything better to do, Mira headed over to Dunban's house. She needed a place to stay for the night, and she could only hope that he'd be willing to allow her to stay with him despite not knowing her very well. She knocked on the door, wondering if he was already asleep. 

"Come in, it's open." Dunban's voice called. Mira abided. She found him standing in the kitchen, looking at a picture of something. Upon closer inspection, Mira realized that it must've been a picture of Fiora and Shulk playing together as children. Dunban turned around. 

"Mira, correct?" Dunban asked. "So, what brings you here?" 

"Needed some place to stay." Mira answered honestly. "Dickson offered to let me stay at his place for the night, then he kicked me out." 

"And why was that?" Dunban questioned. 

"I insulted the Bionis one too many times." Mira explained, avoiding going into detail about the encounter.  

"You'd be surprised by how much Dickson cares about the Bionis." Dunban stated. Mira nodded, not really having much to say to that. "Anyways, you're welcome to stay here for as long as needs be." 

"Thanks." Mira said. "I'll try to avoid being a burden on you." 

Dunban chuckled and turned back to his picture. Mira stared at the man, feeling an uncomfortable silence wash over her. Eventually, she decided to walk up behind him to get a closer look at the picture he was staring at. 

"They were close to each other." Dunban stated. 

"Huh?" 

"Shulk and Fiora." He specified. "The two were almost inseparable." 

"I can't imagine how Shulk must feel." Mira admitted. "Losing someone like that." 

Dunban sighed. "I just hope he can get over it." 

"There's a lot more stuff around Fiora's death than he realizes." Mira muttered. Dunban raised an eyebrow. 

"Come again?" He asked. 

"Huh?" 

"You said that there's more around Fiora's death than Shulk realizes. What are you talking about?" Dunban clarified. Mira froze. "Well?" 

"Uh..." Mira was at a lose for words, having knocked herself into a corner. Dunban's suspicion only increased. "I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have said that." 

"If you don't want to say anything, I won't force you, but if you have anything to say, I'll listen." Dunban told her. 

"Thank you for understanding." 

"Let me show you to where you can stay." Dunban said, leading Mira to a back room with a simple bed in it. There were a few decorations and pictures scattered around. Mira approached the bed. When she turned around to thank Dunban, he had already left the room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to update. My computer broke and now I'm using OneDrive to type this chapter, so the formatting might be weird. I also redid the segment where Mira talked with Zanza a few times since I was worried about messing that up. Anyways, this part's done.


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